The Journal of Blacks in Higher Educationhttps://www.jbhe.com
JBHE is dedicated to the conscientious investigation of the status and prospects for African Americans in higher education.Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:10:08 +0000en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3.2https://www.jbhe.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cropped-jbhe-circle-32x32.pngThe Journal of Blacks in Higher Educationhttps://www.jbhe.com
323225261129Three Black Scholars Appointed to Dean Positions at State Universitieshttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/three-black-scholars-appointed-to-dean-positions-at-state-universities/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/three-black-scholars-appointed-to-dean-positions-at-state-universities/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 19:48:15 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114634BaShaun H.L. Smith was appointed associate vice chancellor and dean of students at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. He has served in these roles on an interim basis since June 2019. Dr.Smith came to WCU in June 2016 as the associate director of residence life. Two years later, he was named director of residence life. Earlier, he was the assistant director of residential education at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, from 2013-16.

Dr. Smith is a graduate of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where he majored in history. He holds a master’s degree in college student personnel from the Univerity of Dayton in Ohio and a doctorate in educational leadership from Western Carolina University.

Annice D. Yarber-Allen has been named dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at Columbus State University in Georgia. She has been serving as the interim dean of the College since June 2019. Dr. Yarber-Allen joined the faculty at the university in 2018 as a professor and chair of the department of criminal justice and sociology. Earlier, she chaired the department of sociology, anthropology, and geography at the Montgomery, Alabama, campus of Auburn University.

Dr. Yarber-Allen holds a bachelor’s degree in social work and a Ph.D. in medical sociology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also earned a master of social work degree at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Eric Wilcots, the Mary C. Jacoby professor of astronomy, has been selected as dean of the College of Letters & Science, the largest academic unit at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has been serving as interim dean of the college since August 2019. Earlier, Dr. Wilcots served as deputy dean and associate dean for research of the College of Letters & Science. He has served on the university’s faculty since 1996.

Professor Wilcots is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/three-black-scholars-appointed-to-dean-positions-at-state-universities/feed/0114634Prairie View A&M Will Take Steps to Further Education on Systemic Racism in Americahttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/prairie-view-am-will-take-steps-to-further-education-on-systemic-racism-in-america/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/prairie-view-am-will-take-steps-to-further-education-on-systemic-racism-in-america/#commentsFri, 05 Jun 2020 19:10:48 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114621Ruth J. Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University in Texas, issued a statement to the university community outlining her plans for the educational institution in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. “The stark brutality of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has further deepened the crisis in the country and reawakened a sense of fear and outrage across the world and especially among African Americans who recognize the crime as part and parcel of the reality that they endure every day,” President Simmons wrote.

President Simmons said that as soon as approval can be achieved, all students entering Prairie View A&M University will take a course on the history of race and class in the United States. “While one course will never be a panacea,” Dr. Simmons said, “it can serve to ground our students in the reality of their lives and help them better navigate how to cope with the often confusing treatment they may encounter in the future. It can also help them avoid personal behavior that is complicit in holding themselves back from the fullness of their abilities.”

The university will also institute and an Activist-in-Residence position that will bring individuals to campus who have made a difference in casting light on or solving systemic social problems. And an annual award will be established for activists who have performed important work to increase understanding in the area of criminal justice reform.

President Simmons also proposes the creation of a Center for Race and Justice on campus. The purpose of the Center will be to encourage teaching and scholarship that contributes positively to overturning systemic biases that impede the ability of minorities and other groups to be accorded their full rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Dr. Simmons is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans and holds a Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures from Harvard University. Dr. Simmons has served as president of Brown University in Rhode Island and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Earlier, she was vice provost at Princeton University in New Jersey and provost at Spelman College in Atlanta.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/prairie-view-am-will-take-steps-to-further-education-on-systemic-racism-in-america/feed/1114621A Quartet of Black Scholars Taking on New Faculty Assignmentshttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/a-quartet-of-black-scholars-taking-on-new-faculty-assignments/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/a-quartet-of-black-scholars-taking-on-new-faculty-assignments/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 18:05:55 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114493Vanessa Williams will serve as the 2020-2021 Dean’s Scholar-in-Residence in the department of music and performing arts professions at New York University. Williams has received 11 Grammy nominations, one Tony nomination, four Emmy nominations, and three SAG Award nominations.

Williams is a graduate of Syracuse University in New York. In 1983, Williams was the first African American woman to be named Miss America.

Bonzo Reddick is the new chair of community medicine at the Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. He has been serving as associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion and professor of community medicine and family medicine on the school’s Savannah campus.

Dr. Reddick is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta and the Morehouse School of Medicine. He holds a master of public health degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Miriam Merrill was named professor and chair of the department of physical education at Pomona College and director of athletics for Pomona and Pitzer Colleges in Claremont, California. She has been serving as the associate director of athletics at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.

Dr. Merrill is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where she was an All-American in track. She holds a Ph.D. in the psychology of human movement from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Titichia M. Jackson was named an assistant professor of lawyering skills and director of academic success and bar passage at Penn State Dickinson Law School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. She was director of bar preparation and support for the North Carolina Central University School of Law.

Jackson is a graduate of Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. She earned a juris doctorate at North Carolina Central University.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/a-quartet-of-black-scholars-taking-on-new-faculty-assignments/feed/0114493Report Finds That Texas Southern University Admitted Thousands of Unqualified Studentshttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/report-finds-that-texas-southern-university-admitted-thousands-of-unqualified-students/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/report-finds-that-texas-southern-university-admitted-thousands-of-unqualified-students/#commentsFri, 05 Jun 2020 17:33:37 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114606An independent report from the Berkeley Group, commissioned by the board of regents of Texas Southern University, found that the university admitted large numbers of students that did not meet the admissions requirements of the university. For the years 2017 to 2019, at least 43 percent of admitted students did not meet the academic requirements. In 2017, 56 percent of admitted students were later deemed unqualified.

Students who were below the university’s academic admissions criteria did not perform as well academically as those who met the criteria. Students who were below the criteria were also less likely to remain enrolled and continue working towards their degree. For the Fall 2017 and 2018 entering student cohorts, 63 percent and 49 percent of the students were no longer enrolled at Texas Southern University by the fall of 2019.

The report also determined that about $2 million in scholarships were awarded to students in the entering classes from 2017 to 2019 who did not meet the minimum academic requirements.

Earlier, this year, the board of regents dismissed Texas Southern University President Austin Lane in part due to irregularities in the admission process at the university’s law school. It is not known whether the information contained in this recent report, impacted the board’s decision to fire President Lane.

Dr. Lane has since been selected as the next chancellor of Southern Illinois Carbondale. (See JBHE post.)

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/report-finds-that-texas-southern-university-admitted-thousands-of-unqualified-students/feed/1114606Rion Amilcar Scott Wins the Towson University Prize for Literaturehttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/rion-amilcar-scott-wins-the-towson-university-prize-for-literature/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/rion-amilcar-scott-wins-the-towson-university-prize-for-literature/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 16:17:24 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114599Rion Amilcar Scott, who teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, has been selected as the winner of the Towson University Prize for Literature.

Established in 1979 with a grant from Alice and Franklin Cooley, the Towson University Prize for Literature is awarded annually for a single book or book-length manuscript of fiction, poetry, drama, or imaginative nonfiction. The prize is granted on the basis of literary and aesthetic excellence as determined by a panel of distinguished judges appointed by the university.

Scott was honored for his short story collection The World Doesn’t Require You (Liveright, 2019). The book is a follow-up to his 2016 award-winning debut collection Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016). The collections of stories tell the tales of the residents of the fictional community of Cross River, Maryland, a largely Black settlement founded in 1807 after the only successful slave revolt in the United States.

A native of Silver Spring, Maryland, Scott received a mater of fine arts degree from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/rion-amilcar-scott-wins-the-towson-university-prize-for-literature/feed/0114599Tuskegee University in Alabama Renews Focus on Career Developmenthttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/tuskegee-university-in-alabama-renews-focus-on-career-development/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/tuskegee-university-in-alabama-renews-focus-on-career-development/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 15:35:50 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114603Historically Black Tuskegee University in Alabama is now offering an intensive training program that will certify faculty members as Certified Career Services Providers. In a higher education setting, the CCSP credential prepares faculty and staff to better mentor students as they guide them in connecting academic and co-curricular opportunities with their professional goals.

More than 30 faculty and staff — selected by university administrators and deans — form Tuskegee’s initial credentialed cohort. The credential, administered by the National Career Development Association, includes 120 hours of total training time. Upon their credentialing, current and future cohorts will be known as the university’s “REACH Faculty Career Advisers.”

CCSP training topics range from understanding the expectations and operating conditions of today’s labor market to counseling students on how to identify their career aptitudes and enhance their marketability to hiring managers. Throughout their academic journey, Tuskegee Univerity students will receive coaching and mentoring from REACH Faculty Career Advisers, with a holistic approach to how they select courses, pursue appropriate co-curricular activities and apply for applicable internships that will maximize opportunities for career success.

“Dating back to the philosophy of founding president Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee has maintained a legacy of preparing students for a vocation — not just awarding a degree,” said interim provost Carla Jackson Bell. “Through this training, our faculty and staff will help students translate and articulate their classroom experiences into tangible, transferable skills sought after by today’s highly competitive workforce.”

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/tuskegee-university-in-alabama-renews-focus-on-career-development/feed/0114603New University Administrative Posts for Six African Americanshttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/new-university-administrative-posts-for-six-african-americans/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/new-university-administrative-posts-for-six-african-americans/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 14:52:39 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114546Tracey Ford has been appointed vice provost and dean of student affairs at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She has served in the position on an interim basis since August and will begin her permanent appointment on July 1. Previously, Dr. Ford held a similar role as vice president for student affairs at Tennessee State University.

Dr. Ford holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Norfolk State University in Virginia and a master’s degree in genetics from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She earned a doctorate in higher education from the University of Georgia.

Sean T. Bennett is the new vice president for diversity and inclusion at Salem State University in Massachusetts. He had been serving as assistant dean for academic operations and student success in the College of Engineering Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

Dr. Bennett holds master’s degrees from the College of Brockport of the State University of New York System and Harvard University. He earned an educational doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania.

Samara Hough was named director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality at the University of Michigan-Flint. Previously, she worked at the Michigan State University Center for Survivors and at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Center for the Education of Women and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center.

Hough earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. She holds a master’s degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.

Martin Jarmond has been named as the Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jarmond has served as the William V. Campbell Director of Athletics at Boston College for the past three years.

A native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Jarmond earned a bachelor’s degree in communication studies from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He holds an MBA and a master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University.

Claudia Donald has been named interim chief marketing officer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has been serving as executive director of digital marketing and online communications at the university. She joined the staff at the university in 2005.

Donald is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she majored in food and natural resources. She holds a master’s degree in computer information systems from Boston University.

Jasmin Sessoms has been named interim director of alumni affairs at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. Prior to her appointment, Sessoms served as assistant director of development at the university.

Sessoms is a magna cum laude graduate of Fayetteville State University, where she majored in mass communications.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/new-university-administrative-posts-for-six-african-americans/feed/0114546In Memoriam: Conrad Worrill, 1941-2020https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/in-memoriam-conrad-worrill-1941-2020/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/in-memoriam-conrad-worrill-1941-2020/#respondFri, 05 Jun 2020 13:52:28 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114626Conrad Worrill, a civil rights activist and former professor at Northeastern Illinois University, died on June 3 in Chicago. He was 78 years old and had suffered from cancer.

A native of Pasadena, California, Worrill moved to Chicago with his family when he was nine years old. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Japan.

Dr. Worrill received a bachelor’s degree in applied behavioral sciences from George Williams College in Wisconsin. He earned a master’s degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Worrill began his career in the academic world as the coordinator for Urban Programs and assistant professor in the Institute for Environmental Awareness at George Williams College. He joined the faculty of the department of inner city studies at Northeastern Illinois University in 1976. He served as the director of the university’s Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies in Bronzeville. Professor Worrill served as chairman of the National Black United Front and was a consultant for the Million Man March in 1995

Dr. Worrill retired in 2016 after 50 years on the faculty.

]]>https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/in-memoriam-conrad-worrill-1941-2020/feed/0114626RIP George Floydhttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/rip-george-floyd/
Thu, 04 Jun 2020 14:52:07 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114588114588Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readershttps://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/online-articles-that-may-be-of-interest-to-jbhe-readers-434/
https://www.jbhe.com/2020/06/online-articles-that-may-be-of-interest-to-jbhe-readers-434/#respondThu, 04 Jun 2020 02:06:10 +0000https://www.jbhe.com/?p=114486Each week, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. The links presented direct the reader to articles from many different points of view that deal with issues of African Americans in higher education. The articles selected do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board of JBHE.

We invite subscribers to e-mail us or tweet @jbhedotcom with suggestions of articles for inclusion in this feature.